Pakistan launched airstrikes on three Afghan provinces late on Tuesday, killing at least 13 people — 11 of them children, along with one woman and one elderly man — and wounding 14 others, according to Afghanistan's Taliban government. The strikes hit residential areas in Khost, Kunar and Paktika, three provinces that line Afghanistan's mountainous eastern border with Pakistan. There was no immediate acknowledgment or comment from Islamabad.
Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban government's chief spokesman, condemned the attacks as a "humanitarian crime and act of aggression." Local officials provided additional detail: in Khost's Spera district, a house was struck, killing nine people and wounding ten; in Paktika's Barmal district, a separate strike hit a home and killed three civilians, all of them children, according to residents who spoke to AFP.
The airstrikes came one day after suspected fighters from the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) — a militant group separate from but allied with the Afghan Taliban — attacked a security checkpoint in the Hasan Khel area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a northwestern Pakistani province bordering Afghanistan. Six members of Pakistan's Federal Constabulary, a paramilitary force, were killed in the ensuing gun battle. Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi attended funeral prayers for the dead in Peshawar and vowed to intensify operations against groups threatening Pakistan's security.
The exchange is part of a broader and intensifying conflict between the two neighbours. Relations deteriorated sharply after the Taliban retook power in Afghanistan in 2021 during the chaotic withdrawal of US-led forces. Fighting escalated dramatically in late February 2026 when Afghanistan launched a cross-border attack on Pakistan in retaliation for earlier Pakistani airstrikes. Pakistan subsequently declared it was in open conflict with Afghanistan. A fragile ceasefire brokered in March collapsed after each side accused the other of violations, and peace talks hosted by China in Urumqi have so far failed to produce a lasting agreement. A United Nations report published last month found that at least 372 Afghan civilians were killed and 397 wounded in cross-border fighting in just the first three months of 2026.
The core dispute centres on competing accusations: Pakistan insists that Afghanistan harbours TTP fighters responsible for deadly attacks on Pakistani soil and civilians, while Kabul denies the charge, accusing Islamabad of violating Afghan sovereignty and sheltering hostile groups of its own. With civilian casualties mounting on both sides and diplomatic efforts stalled, the conflict shows little sign of abating.